Dianne Chapitis founded Symphonica Dance Company in 2001 to concentrate on the researching and developing of performance art, expressing the intimate relationships between music and dance; finding the source of interaction between musician and dancer. Seeking music and musicians to make use of architectural and choreographic form, Ms. Chapitis continuously observes nature and involves many disciplines, including ballet, modern dance and the Mitzvah Technique.Most of her work includes musicians who are at the forefront of creating new forms in their own varied fields ,as well as in the classical tradition.
Ms. Chapitis has given several workshops at Wilfred Laurier University Music Department, the Kitchener Waterloo Youth Orchestra , The Royal Conservatory of Musicand taught dance composition for eight years at the Nancy Campbell Collegiate Institute in Stratford, Canada.
Upon completion of her Honours Dance degree in Kinesiology at the University of Waterloo, she furthered her training and performing experience at the Toronto Dance Theatre with David Earle, Trish Beatty and Peter Randazzo, Robert Desrosiers, Dancemakers and Peter Chin. She had the opportunity of studying with members of the Jennifer Muller Company, the Martha Graham Company , including Bertram Ross and Peggy Lymons. While performing and choreographing as an independent artist in Toronto she studied the Mitzvah Technique with Nehemia Cohen and voice with Ahmed Hassan and Peter Chin.
COMMENTS ON MS.CHAPITIS WORK
Jon Jang, San Francisco pianist/composer/activist describes Ms.Chapitis work as bringing his music to new heights.
Steve Mc Dougal, Toronto photographer/choreographer describes Ms.Chapitis as painting the music into three dimensional space, coining the phrase 'musiography'
Dierdre Kelly, dance critic for Toronto's Globe & Mail described her choreography as creating 'spirals around each dancer's spine, as if the dance was made of small whirling coils of energy that have wrapped around the performers like flaming bits of silk'.
Mike Chamberlain, writing for CODA, The Journal of Jazz and Improvised Music stated that the performance opening the Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquim with dancer Dianne Chapitis and percussionist Hamid Drake was a successful event. Ms. Chapits has shared the stage with such artists as Michael Snow, John Oswald, David Prentice, Sabir Mateen, Angelique van Berlo, Loreena McKinnett, Guy Few, Jay Rosen and Michael Marcus.
CURRENT PROJECTS
For the past four years Ms. Chapitis has been collaborating with New York bassist, Dominic Duval, a leading force in the contemporary music scene,breaking boundaries in jazz, modern classical and the avantegarde with his innovative musicianship. Their work together has been described as brilliant, provocative and a beautiful thing to behold.